John Carpenter rages against crooked politicians, the class divide, popular culture, and racial injustice in Reagan-era America. Alas, little has changed.

Errol Morris investigates subjectivity in his groundbreaking documentary.

Werner Herzog looks beyond the facts to find poetry in the documentary format.

The greatest of all Italian Neorealist films.

Akira Kurosawa looks at Japan’s postwar depression in this gangster melodrama.

Akira Kurosawa’s kidnapping thriller explores the question, “Why can’t people be happier together?”

The most acerbic Hollywood satire of the 1990s.

Robert Altman’s take on America: “The darndest thing you ever saw.”

Brian De Palma creates a romanticized vision of the past and then uses it to question the era’s moral gray zones.